05 Aug 2013: Report

With Tar Sands Development, Growing Concern on Water Use

Environmental questions about Canada’s massive tar sands development have long centered on greenhouse gas emissions. Now there are mounting concerns about the huge volumes of water used by the oil industry and the impact on the vast Mackenzie River Basin.

by ed struzik

Opposition to the mining of Alberta’s tar sands — and the Keystone and Gateway pipelines that would carry their oil to the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific Ocean — has largely been focused on the project’s greenhouse gas emissions and threats to pristine environments along the pipeline rights-of-way.

But another serious issue is coming to the fore — the massive amounts of freshwater being used by the industry. In 2011, companies mining the tar sands siphoned approximately 370 million cubic meters of water from the Athabasca River alone, which was heated or converted into steam to separate the viscous oil, or bitumen, from sand formations. That quantity exceeds the amount of water that the city of Toronto, with a population 2.8 million people, uses annually.

But unlike Torontonians, tar sands companies pay nothing for this water. All they need is a license from the province of Alberta. Nor do they clean it after recycling it and pumping it back into underground aquifers or into tailings ponds, which now cover 170 square kilometers — 66 square miles

‘Nowhere in the world are we seeing this amount of groundwater used for industrial development.’

— of territory in northern Alberta.

A growing number of scientists and economists believe the tar sands industry has already reached a tipping point in its dependence on both surface and groundwater. They contend that the timing and magnitude of these diversions are drying up wetlands, disrupting water flows, and potentially threatening riparian habitats thousands of miles downstream along the Mackenzie River basin, which drains 20 per cent of Canada.

“Nowhere in the world are we seeing this amount of groundwater being used for industrial development,” says William Donahue, a freshwater scientist, lawyer, and special advisor to Water Matters, an Alberta-based think tank. “The scale of these withdrawals is massive and totally unsustainable.”

“It’s an alarming scenario,” says Vaux, whose report links heavy water use by the tar sands to potentially harmful changes in the Mackenzie River Basin, including water pollution, wetlands destruction, and changes in drainage patterns in the Mackenzie headwaters. “Given the rate of expansion in the industry, it’s going to get a lot worse.”

To produce a barrel of oil from the tar sands, the industry says it typically needs between 0.4 and 3.1 barrels of freshwater. In 2008, the tar sands produced 1.31 million barrels of oil per day. That is expected to more than double to three million barrels a day in 2018, further straining water supplies on the Athabasca River and aquifers in northern Alberta. In addition to withdrawing water from other sources, tar sands operations are authorized to divert 652 million cubic meters of water from the Athabasca, double the current volume of withdrawals.

Until several years ago, most tar sands bitumen was obtained through open pit mining, which requires the draining of wetlands, the diversion of streams, the clearcutting of forests, and the removal of soil and overburden. At last count more than 400 square miles of land were being mined in this way. The bitumen-laden sands are then transported to an extraction plant, where hot water is used to separate out the oil.

In recent years, however, in situ mining of tar sands — which involves injecting steam into tar sands deposits too deep to be surface-mined — has escalated. The oil is recovered through an assisted-gravity draining process in which steam and solvents are pumped into the upper portion of the tar sands reservoir. There, the bitumen warms and thins and then drains down into the lower part of the reservoir before being pumped back to the surface.

Open-pit tar sands operations return almost none of the water they use back to the natural cycle because it is toxic and therefore subject to a zero discharge policy. Although a large percentage of the wastewater is recycled, most of it eventually ends up in tailings ponds. Wastewater from in situ

The evidence suggests that surface and groundwater supplies are being tainted.

processes is routinely re-injected into the deeper aquifers.

Steve Wallace, head of the province of Alberta’s groundwater management unit, says that the industry’s withdrawal of water from the Athabasca River amounts to about one percent of river flow, although that figure is expected to grow to 2.5 percent as production increases. He acknowledged that this percentage is often much higher in periods of low flow, and a report by the non-profit Pembina Institute said tar sands operations could eventually
consume 25 percent of the river’s water during periods of low flow.

Wallace says that major progress has been made in storing and conserving water in the tar sands region since the provincial government enacted new rules in 2006. One of those rules caps the amount of water the industry can use in times of low flow. Last year, Alberta and the Canadian government announced a joint plan to bolster environmental monitoring of water, air, and terrestrial pollution in the tar sands region by 2015.

Industry and government officials have long contended that the contaminants in the tailings ponds are not leaching into the groundwater, as some scientists, conservationists, and aboriginal leaders claim. But the government of Alberta has an inadequate number of groundwater monitoring wells in the tar sands regions. And as a recent Royal Society of Canada expert panel reported, there is also no regional hydrogeological framework in place to assess the cumulative impacts of the oil sands industry on groundwater quality.

A Syncrude Canada tar sands processing facility, background, with a tailings pond in the foreground.

But the evidence suggests that surface and groundwater supplies are being tainted. An internal government memo prepared for Canada’s Natural Resources Minister in June 2012 describes how geoscientist Martine Savard and 18 colleagues detected “potentially harmful, mining-related organic acid contaminants in the groundwater outside a long-established... tailings pond.” In the study, Savard and colleagues suggest that acids may be reaching the Athabasca River in small amounts.

Henry Vaux of the University of California, Riverside suggests that the potential for a collapse, or breach, of one of the tailings ponds dikes is another significant threat.

“One of those dikes is eventually going to let go; there is no such thing as a dike that lasts forever,” he says. “If that happens in the wintertime when

‘One of those dikes is eventually going to let go; there is no such thing as a dike that lasts forever,’ says one expert.

the Athabasca River is covered in ice, there is no way of remediating the situation. The polluted water is going to flow a long way.”

In recent weeks, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. has been unable to stop leaks from an underground oil blowout at an in situ operation. The leak has been contaminating a lake, a forest, and wetlands at its operations at Cold Lake.

In July, Peter Lee of Global Forest Watch Canada and Kevin Timoney of Treeline Ecological Research released a study showing that the province’s records on environmental contamination in the tar sands are incomplete and riddled with errors. Enforcement action, they say, was taken in less than one percent of the more than 4,000 cases where a tar sands facility violated an operating condition.

Water economist David Zetland, who writes the blog Aguanomics, supports the Keystone XL pipeline project because he believes tar sands oil is going to be transported one way or another; the pipeline, he argues, is better than using trucks or trains. But he believes that permitting the tar sands industry to use water for free and allowing companies to reinject polluted water back into the ground or into tailings ponds is a major mistake.

“Those days of abundant [water] supplies are coming to an end, even in Canada,” said Zetland. “The solution is to make people pay for water.”

In an intriguing development earlier this year, a pair of satellites operated by NASA and the German Aerospace Center showed that the tar sands region and a large area downstream of it showed up as a zone of significant water loss. The twin satellites are part of a program known as GRACE, the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, which measures Earth's gravity field in a way that, among other things, allows scientists to better estimate gains and losses in water storage, including groundwater.

James Famiglietti, director of the University of California Center for Hydrologic Modeling and author of a map of the depletion zone, cautioned

Even people associated with the industry are warning of a potential supply shortage as production triples.

that more work needs to be done to determine what is causing the depletion. Among possible causes are the over-use of water by the tar sands industry, but also post-glacial rebound, which is active in the region, as well as declines in groundwater reserves because of climate change. But Famiglietti noted, “If the volume of water used in the oil sands production is as large as is the industry says that it is, it is very likely that the GRACE satellites will detect it.”

“Water issues, such as large-scale water usage and troublesome polluted water disposal concerns connected to Canada’s oil sands industries, must be resolved,” Bowman and his co-authors say. They conclude that charging for water and trading water rights are the best way to ensure water security for the industry, while balancing environmental and social impacts. The status quo, they write, “does not encourage private companies to develop and employ new technologies related to water reduction.”

The rapid development of Alberta’s tar sands has spawned a proposed 731-mile pipeline that would transport oil to the British Columbia coast. As Ed Struzik reported last year, the project is strongly opposed by conservationists and First Nations leaders, who fear the environmental risks it would bring.READ MORE

Vaux is doubtful that the Albert government will be willing to put a price on water. “People in government and industry go silent the moment you raise the subject,” he points out.

What is needed, Vaux says, are performance bonds in which industry sets aside money to clean up future environmental damage . Vaux also contends that given the piecemeal and often self-regulated system that now exists, the federal Canadian government, the Alberta government, the Northwest Territories, and aboriginal communities downstream need to embrace a coordinated, science-based approach to water management in the tar sands region.

“The issue of water in the Mackenzie Basin is one that does not get enough attention,” he says. “It’s a shame because so much territory is affected by the diversions. It’s not just northern Alberta, it’s a river basin system that supports indigenous people and fish and wildlife habitats all the way to the Beaufort Sea.”

Correction, August 5, 2013:An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported the daily volume of oil production in Alberta’s tar sands region in 2008. The production that year was 1.31 million barrels of oil per day.

COMMENTS

370 million cubic meters of water = 3.1 billion barrels of water 1.6 million barrels a day of tar sands produced in 2011 = 584 billion barrels

Simple math shows that tar sands production require 5.3 barrels of water for every barrel of tar sands oil produced.

Posted by
MarkfromLexington
on 05 Aug 2013

I also think that tar sands producers should CLEAN UP tailings ponds (http://www.aguanomics.com/2013/05/fracking-pollution-property-rights-and.html), as part of "proper pricing."

Posted by
David Zetland
on 06 Aug 2013

It is unfortunate that this article is so heavily biased and ill-informed about what is going on in northern Alberta.

What appears to be lost on many people is that the primary cause of the loss of wetland areas is not the oil sands development (there is no tar in it), it is the change in water flows that comes from the Peace River. With the construction of one, then two, now three hydro dams on the Peace River in British Columbia, the seasonal flooding and overall water flow into the Athabasca delta has been severely impaired. This all happened long before the oil sands development became a major factor.

As for clean up, that is taking place and the amount of conventional strip mining with tailing ponds is rapidly shrinking as new technologies take hold.

As to water pricing, there is a massive water surplus in terms of sustainable yield in northern Alberta while a growing deficit in central and southern Alberta. This is an ongoing problem that does not show much sign of solution any time soon as the Alberta Government is very loath to allow water conservation practices that are commonplace in other jurisdictions.

Posted by
Richard Neufeld
on 07 Aug 2013

At www.sustainabilitynotcapitalism.blogspot.com and on my Facebook page, I posted the following.

As a chemist (PhD UCL, 1982), I'd appreciate reasoned comments and suggestions for reading/networking among chemists who understand the chemistry of wealth (and pollution) production:

Monday, August 12, 2013
Is sustainable mining possible? If not, then what?
13 August 2013

I visited the Balcombe Protection Camp today (well, yesterday) where local people, co-operatively with people from Occupy and many others, are nonviolently resisting an exploration that may end (yikes!) in Fracking in Sussex.

This has got me thinking about, not only, 'creative nonviolent resistance', but , also, 'creative nonviolent proposition' (which is the basis for Occupy's political location in 'the Fourth Quadrant'*).

(*The other forms of politics seemingly being 'The Politics of Resistance', 'The Politics of Practical Demonstration' and 'The Politics of The-Long-March-Through-The-System': as per a woman's voice at the 1997 recreation of The Putney Debates.)

Moreover, my restless mind has gone back to the basis for this blog - that I started a long time ago - www.sustainabilitynotcapitalism.blogspot.com Those thoughts include the question as to whether 'sustainable mining' isn't an oxymoron (I suspect that it is) and, if that is so and wealth creation is represented by the word equation:

(Raw) materials + Energy --> Wealth (Added value) + Pollution

Then how can we help a new economics evolve that does not involve mining - Fracking included . . .

Someone must have written about this.

That said, we still need the symbiosis of 'creative nonviolent resistance' along with 'creative nonviolent proposition' if we are to have any chance of evolving a new human form - 'here for a long time - *and* a good time' (to paraphrase a previous BC premier, Dave xyz.)

Posted by
Dr John Courtneidge
on 13 Aug 2013

FACT: The United States Congress voted AGAINST an amendment to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline requiring an American workforce.

FACT: The United States Congress voted AGAINST an amendment requiring petroleum products refined from tar sands be used in the United States.

FACT: The United State Congress voted AGAINST an amendment banning export of petroleum products refined from tar sands.

FACT: The United States Congress voted AGAINST re-classifying tar sands as oil, which would have required TransCanada be libel for any environmental damage caused by the coming ruptures.

FACT: With the consent of local "authorities", TransCanada is using Eminent Domain to seize property from Americans upon which they hope to build their pipeline, using Canadians as a workforce to send tar sands to our Gulf for refining and export.

Posted by
BeachJC
on 14 Aug 2013

POST A COMMENT

Comments are moderated and will be reviewed before they are posted to ensure they are on topic, relevant, and not abusive. They may be edited for length and clarity. By filling out this form, you give Yale Environment 360 permission to publish this comment.

RELATED ARTICLES

The Case for a Moratorium On Tar Sands Development Ecologist Wendy Palen was one of a group of scientists who recently called for a moratorium on new development of Alberta’s tar sands. In a Yale Environment 360 interview, she talks about why Canada and the U.S. need to reconsider the tar sands as part of a long-term energy policy.
READ MORE

On Ravaged Tar Sands Lands, Big Challenges for Reclamation The mining of Canada’s tar sands has destroyed large areas of sensitive wetlands in Alberta. Oil sands companies have vowed to reclaim this land, but little restoration has occurred so far and many scientists say it is virtually impossible to rebuild these complex ecosystems.READ MORE

Canada’s Great Inland Delta: A Precarious Future Looms The Peace-Athabasca Delta, one of the world’s largest freshwater deltas, is facing major change as rising temperatures, a prolonged drought, and water withdrawals for Alberta’s tar sands industry threaten to increasingly dry out this vast expanse of waterways and wetlands.READ MORE

Tar Sands Oil Boom Drives Push for A Northern Pipeline The rapid development of Alberta’s tar sands has spawned a new proposal for a 731-mile pipeline that would transport oil to the British Columbia coast. The project is strongly opposed by conservationists and First Nations leaders, who fear the environmental risks it would bring. READ MORE

MORE IN Reports

In Kenya’s Mountain Forests, A New Path to Conservationby fred pearceKenya’s high-elevation forests are the source for most of the water on which the drought-plagued nation depends. Now, after decades of government-abetted abuse of these regions, a new conservation strategy of working with local communities is showing signs of success.READ MORE

Will New Obstacles Dim Hawaii’s Solar Power Surge?by erica giesBlessed with lots of sun and keen to cut its reliance on imported oil, Hawaii has moved to the forefront of residential solar installations in the U.S. But financial and technical hurdles are slowing the state’s drive to generate 40 percent of its electricity from renewable energy by 2030.READ MORE

Agricultural Movement Tackles Challenges of a Warming Worldby lisa palmerWith temperatures rising and extreme weather becoming more frequent, the “climate-smart agriculture” campaign is using a host of measures — from new planting practices to improved water management — to keep farmers ahead of the disruptive impacts of climate change.READ MORE

Natural Gas Boom Brings Major Growth for U.S. Chemical Plantsby rachel cernanskyThe surge in U.S. production of shale gas is leading to the rapid expansion of chemical and manufacturing plants that use the gas as feedstock. But environmentalists worry these new facilities will bring further harm to industrialized regions already bearing a heavy pollution burden.READ MORE

How Technology Is Protecting World’s Richest Marine Reserveby christopher palaAfter years of fitful starts, the Pacific island nation of Kiribati this month banned all commercial fishing inside its huge marine reserve. New satellite transponder technology is now helping ensure that the ban succeeds in keeping out the big fishing fleets.READ MORE

Wood Pellets: Green Energy or New Source of CO2 Emissions?by roger real drouinBurning wood pellets to produce electricity is on the rise in Europe, where the pellets are classified as a form of renewable energy. But in the U.S., where pellet facilities are rapidly being built, concerns are growing about logging and the carbon released by the combustion of wood biomass.READ MORE

Asia’s Fragile Caves Face New Risks from Developmentby mike ivesThe limestone caves of Southeast Asia and southwest China are home to scores of species of plants and animals, many of them rare. But a rise in tourism, mining, and other human activities is increasingly placing these biodiverse environments at risk.READ MORE

e360 MOBILE

e360 VIDEO

The Warriors of Qiugang, a Yale Environment 360 video, chronicles a Chinese village’s fight against a polluting chemical plant. It was nominated for a 2011 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.
Watch the video.